You know what’s cool? Wearing shades! You know what’s even cooler than wearing shades? Looking OVER your shades at someone. This, dear readers, is the familiar phenomenon known as shade-tippin’.
First pioneered by Dolores Haze on the poster of Stanley Kubrick’s notorious film Lolita in 1962, shade-tippin’ has come to be one of the sexiest, most seductive, most demonstrative revelation of “cool” that any character on a movie poster could possibly express. I wear shades, they declare to the world, but I just saw something that I don’t want impeded. It’s very impressive. Most likely, it’s you, girl. You’re the sexy thing I need to get a better look at.
The eyes, as the aphorism goes, are the windows to the soul. Shades allow us to be alert, to have our souls awake and intact, but to guard them from the world. Shades keep our souls mysterious to a casual onlooker, and we demand to be sought behind our shades. I wear my sunglasses at night so I can, so I can watch you weave then breathe your storylines. We are voyeurs with our sunglasses, waiting to be made into participants, daring others to invite us cautiously into their drama. When we tip our shades, we don’t just take a glimpse, we reveal ourselves. It is the ultimate form of human connection.
Below is a gallery of ten prime examples of this philosophical expression. Look over your shades, cool ones, and behold the soul-revealing glory of shade-tippin’ (just in time for National Sunglasses Day).
Witney Seibold is the head film critic for Nerdist, and a contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly Trolling articles here on Crave, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
Shade-Tippin'
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Lolita
Coy, seductive, standoffish, naughty, this underage girl is the ultimate lure of forbidden fruit. The come-hither look was the more alluring thing to Humbert Humbert, the lover of nymphettes from Kubrick's classic.
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Risky Business
The eyes speak how risky he's willing to be. Smoky. Dark. Yet sexy. Daring. The boy is tippin' his shades toward manhood.
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Doc Hollywood
This instance of shade-tippin' reveals geniality. Joy. Playfulness. Michael J. Fox is not just letting you in, he's smiling at you, assuring you, warming you, welcoming you openly. He eschews dark cool for friendliness.
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License to Drive
A pair of friends, one cooler than the other. One is the innocent, sweet adventurer. The other is darker, edgier, more ready to react to extremity. He knows the night ahead will be in control, no matter how out-of-control things get.
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Big Fat Liar
With his victim in the distance, our shade-tippin' star calmly assures us that what he's done is right. There is no moral ambivalence to shade-tippin'. His nearby girlfriend can attest to that.
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What's the Worst That Could Happen?
When one man tips shades, and the other does not, then you know volumes about the man who does not. One is assured, and the other is horrible.
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Glam
The title says it all. A sweet young thing can tip shades and become, well, glam.
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The Hard Way
A rare case of tippin' vs. not tippin', The Hard Way leads us down two paths simultaneously. One is the path of ease, the path of genial coolness, the path of philosophical openness. The other is rough, guarded, closed. The hard way is not the shade-tippin' way.
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Snow Dogs
Who says humans can be the only ones to display their cool? A Siberian Husky is just as cool with his shades tipped up on his head. That is a cooler dog than the other dogs. I'm willing to bet he's the leader.
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Kangaroo Jack
'Nuff said.
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